Handling Spoiler Pics on Rubberslug

[Keropi]

How do you guys handle Spoiler Cel/Sketch Pictures on Rubberslug?

Not sure of all the different ways to handle them.

[Krafty]

Hmm, I don't give it a second thought and just post everything in its entirety. If someone's not seen the movie/series and is fragile and gets upset about seeing a shot which involves a pivotal cresendo- that's their hard luck.

I buy plenty of cels from anime I've never seen and it doesn't bother me one bit, if anything, once I do get to watch one it's nice to see where a character appears and where a death scene is placed in context of the plot.
With so many cels on YJ/Mandarake, if I were concerned about spoilers I'd end up crying myself to sleep every night.

[pixie_princess]

Had that happen with CCS a few times ^_^ I was basically one of the last people on earth to watch it. lol. Basically, I stopped looking up CCS related stuff until after I had watched the whole series. With other series (like Detective Conan) it hasn't bothered me as much and I just look at them. I try not to read the descriptions for series that I am actively watching and don't want to be spoiled on.

[sensei]

1. I take the attitude that an animation art gallery is about displaying, appreciating, and learning from animation art, not a proxy for watching the anime. There are several millenia worth of exciting, suspenseful stories in world tradition, and art has always taken inspiration from them. It would be silly if people were careful about displaying art showing scenes from classical myths or from the Bible because it might make the original stories less suspenseful?

(Jesus got betrayed by one of his disciples at the Last Supper? The guy on the left with the moneybag? No way!)

Equally silly if people felt that they couldn't go to a movie for fear of spoiling the suspense of reading the book (e.g., the Harry Potter movies, which are full of spoilers.)

2. If I feel there is a spoiler issue, I say so on the gallery page. And I put all my notes under the image, not alongside. In some cases, I've left some extra space so that one would need to scroll down to find the spoiler (and if that's an issue, then one wouldn't).

3. But overall, I think it's a non-issue. Good anime tells a story that has its effect not through withholding something at the end, but by telling the tale in a moving way that builds suspense even when you know the ending. So an anime that's truthfully "spoiled" by revealing a plot detail was half-spoiled from the start.

Just my 50 yen...

[Keropi]

Thanks for all your thoughts on this entire topic.

I forgot about the people who make those unviewable Spoiler thumbnails. Unfortunately if I did that it would throw the hit counts completely out of whack because people would be clicking it just to see it.

[jcaliff]

I have some cels that are honestly horrible spoilers, and I've been thanked by email for having them separated from the rest of the series. There are some series, due to their length and or lack of availability, that folks may have seen just parts and not the whole. In my gallery, I have two ways of dealing with both issues. For long series for which I have a lot of cels, I have the cels split up chronologically (Dragon Ball, Ryu Knight, LoGH). That also keeps the pages shorter and easier to manage. LoGH, even thought it's divided chronologically, I have a special spoiler page just because there are so many people who have seen the first season or two and nothing more, I don't want to screw up major spoilers for them in later seasons. I put the generic-looking character cels under the third and fourth series pages, and the plot-spoilers on the extra spoiler page. For ultra-serious spoilers (death of a main character-type things) I have a special thumbnail with a spoiler warning leading to a separate page. If I'm typing a description of the cel that contains a spoiler, even though the cel itself isn't obviously a spoiler, I use "invisible" spoiler text that matches the background color so you have to highlight to read it.

I haven't dealt with it on rubberslug yet, though assuming you can upload a different picture for the thumbnail than the enlarged view, and I think you can if you create your own thumbnail instead of letting RS auto-create thumbnails, that's how I would do it. I would just upload my "spoiler" thumbnail for those cels with a short description why, leading to the enlarged view with the detailed explanation. That way someone who's only seen the beginning of a show doesn't have to see a spoiler if they don't want to, but can click if they're curious. If that's not an option, I'd create a separate page with the word "spoiler" in the series title.

[jcaliff]

3. But overall, I think it's a non-issue. Good anime tells a story that has its effect not through withholding something at the end, but by telling the tale in a moving way that builds suspense even when you know the ending. So an anime that's truthfully "spoiled" by revealing a plot detail was half-spoiled from the start.

Just my 50 yen...

I have to disagree somewhat. I would much rather enjoy watching the anime unfold and tell its story without knowing something horrible about the end ahead of time. And there are a lot of anime that have horrible things that happen at the end. That knowledge can color your viewing of the entire rest of the series.

I had only seen a dozen or so episodes before I saw the KOR movie. After knowing how it ended, I couldn't really enjoy watching the rest of the series, even though most of the series is light hearted comedy. I also found out spoilers from some one who had knowledge of the novels what would happen in Legend of the Galactic Heroes TWO YEARS before I got to see the episodes. Knowing those things made me dread watching the episodes even though I love the series. If I could go back in time, I would much preferred to not have known (I didn't have a choice unfortunately).

Because of those types of experiences, I much prefer to be given the choice of whether or not I want to spoil myself over a major plot point in a series I haven't watched or have only watched part of. Some anime are ruined by spoiler knowledge.

[Keropi]

Yeah...for me there's a difference between "thinking I know how a story will very likely go" and "knowing for sure how it will go". That's what messed me up on KOR because of the order I got exposed to the anime.

I'm pretty certain I don't have any HUGE anime artwork spoilers from anime like Code Geass or anything like that. I don't have any major plot twists, main characters dying, people that find out they were blood related, someone killing someone else, major gender changes or anything like that. Lol

But I did get this piece before I had watched that scene in the anime. And while I probably have less problems with running across spoilers than most, knowing what happened in that scene already told me where the story was heading. So a lot of the mystery regarding that part of the story was taken away for me.

[duotrouble]

I have a statement on my home page that states I write spoilers so beware. After that, I do nothing to warn you or prevent you from seeing/reading spoilers. I have a few cels and sketches that are MAJOR SPOILERS. I figure you entered at your own risk. I rarely go visit galleries of series I don't know but might want to watch just for this reason. I don't want to spoil myself. I'll guarantee if you look in my Ayashi no Ceres, Full Metal Alchemist and Fushigi Yuugi sections you will find major spoiler images.

I do however place my cels and sketches in order of when they appear in the series. So you can look at my gallery and not get spoiled if you don't go too far.

Yeah...for me there's a difference between "thinking I know how a story will very likely go" and "knowing for sure how it will go".

I agree with you. I've been surprised many times by actual outcomes especially since I like to let the anime take me where it wants to instead of trying to figure it out as I go. The only anime I do that with is Detective Conan and that's because he's trying to solve a mystery. But sometimes I just enjoy the clues as they unfold instead of working on the mystery itself.

[cutiebunny]

I think it also depends on what anime you collect. That's why, in my case, I agree with sensei.

Popular series are those known by many, and regardless of whether or not they like the series, they are, at least in some sense, familiar with the basic plotline. It would not be difficult to figure out that Ichigo slays stuff, Sailormoon prances around in a way-too-small skirt and Goku is powering up to his Ultra Mega Gazillion SSJ form. In a sense, although a viewer might not know all the details that might be seasonal/arc specific, they do, at least in the case of popular titles, have a general sense of what the ending will entail.

I put spoilers on the majority of the artwork I own. I think it gives you a better sense as to what is going on in that scene. That way, the viewer can read it and understand why the character is reacting that way.

With newer and less known titles, there's a higher chance that seeing artwork from the series will spoil it for you. But then, there's also the chance that you'll see the artwork and be inspired to just watch the series.